Scraping API
ScrapeUnblocker vs Firecrawl
Firecrawl turns websites into LLM-ready markdown or structured JSON and has become popular as the fetch layer for AI and RAG pipelines. ScrapeUnblocker overlaps on the fetch, but its focus is different: getting through the hard anti-bot walls - Cloudflare, DataDome, PerimeterX, Akamai - and returning the rendered HTML or parsed JSON. The two pair naturally; the question is which half of the problem you are solving.
Firecrawl is strongest at the formatting end: crawl a site, clean it, hand an LLM tidy markdown. ScrapeUnblocker is strongest at the access end: render through its own browser build and a warm pool of rotated profiles, choose exits by reputation and retry through fresh ones, so a site that returns a challenge screen to a plain fetch comes back as a real page. For AI pipelines that keep hitting blocked pages, that access layer is usually the missing piece.
Billing follows results rather than pages crawled: you pay for successful requests and anti-bot soft-blocks come back free instead of as a billed 200. Popular targets also expose plugin endpoints that return structured JSON directly, and a free tier of 500 requests lets you compare delivery on your own targets before committing.
Side by side
| Capability | ScrapeUnblocker | Firecrawl |
|---|---|---|
| Primary focus | Getting through anti-bot, returning the page | Formatting sites into LLM-ready markdown/JSON |
| Rendering engine | Our own browser build + warm profile pool | Headless browser + crawl pipeline |
| Anti-bot bypass | Cloudflare, DataDome, PerimeterX, Akamai | Standard proxying + rendering |
| Output | Rendered HTML or parsed JSON | Markdown / structured JSON for LLMs |
| Pricing model | Pay per successful request, soft-blocks free | Credit-based per page |
| Free tier | 500 requests on signup, no card | Free trial credits |
When ScrapeUnblocker is the better pick
- Your AI pipeline keeps hitting blocked or challenge pages.
- You need the hard anti-bot walls handled, not just clean markdown.
- You want pay-per-success billing with soft-blocks free.
- You want structured JSON for popular sites out of the box.
Where they still make sense
- You want turnkey crawl-to-markdown built for LLM ingestion.
- Your targets are not heavily defended and formatting is the main need.
Try it on your own targets
500 requests free on signup. No card, no sales call.